February 26, 2013

Get Out of our Bodies, Johnson & Johnson

Yesterday, a New Jersey jury ruled in the first of about
1,800 vaginal mesh cases pending in that state against Johnson & Johnson and its
subsidiary, Ethicon. The jury
could not have been more clear: $3.35 to a South Dakota nurse, who was surgically implanted with a Gynecare Prolift vaginal mesh. This device injured
her so severely that she’s already undergone 18 operations to try to repair the damage.
From our earlier coverage of vaginal meshes:

The FDA approved surgical meshes for procedures like
abdominal surgery. But J&J
began marketing them for use in a women’s vaginal area, treating problems like
incontinence. Subsequently,
hundreds of women became severely injured and some died as the meshes began
disintegrating, growing into tissue and becoming impossible to remove.

Meanwhile, the company’s Securities and Exchange Commission
filing revealed last Friday that the United States attorney’s office in Massachusetts and the
civil division of the Justice Department are investigating J&J's marketing of its its ASR hip replacements. That’s the Frankensteinian device
that J&J finally recalled in 2010 even though it apparently knew the device was failing
and releasing high levels of metallic ions, and which it is now
defending in a bunch of lawsuits. See some of our previous coverage here.

And also last Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said
it has “notified healthcare professionals of a Class I recall, the most serious
type,” of J&J’s LPS Diaphyseal Sleeve, used in reconstructive knee
surgery. Apparently, says the FDA, this device as the “potential for fractures” and the FDA has already received 10 reports of the
device malfunctioning:

A fracture in the sleeve at the joint of it could lead to
loss of function or loss of limb, infection, compromised soft tissue or death,
the FDA said.

From now on, Johnson & Johnson needs to stick to cotton
swabs. The outer ear is as far
inside the body we would like J&J products to go, thank you very much.

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